The March issue of Birding features the work of Kevin Omland, an associate professor of biology.

The author, Paul Hess writes that, Omland and his colleagues, “take an opposite view from several papers that recommend splitting the Common Raven into two species.”

The new study demonstrates a need for multiple criteria — not only genetic, but also morphological, behavioral and ecological to judge whether a population deserves full-species status.

The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Times covered the UMBC chess team this week as they competed in the 2012 President’s Cup.

The team tied with the University of Texas at Dallas for second place, behind Texas Tech and ahead of New York University. The competition, known informally as the Final Four, was held March 30 to April 1 in Herndon, Va., at the Westin Dulles Hotel.

Teams qualified for the match back in December, during the 2011 Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. In that match UMBC came in second, ahead of Texas Tech and New York University and behind the University of Texas at Dallas. All four teams advanced to the Final Four. In that event, UMBC and UTD both earned 7.5 points, with Texas Tech scoring 8 and NYU 1.

Constantine Vaporis, professor of history and director of the Asian studies program, will participate in a panel disccusion at the Freer Gallery on Saturday, May 5 as part of the “articulations” series.  The purpose of the series is to “broaden… perspectives on art and culture through conversations from multiple viewpoints.”

The topic of conversation will be “Visual Culture and Social Upheaval: Imaging Change in Late Edo Period Japan.”  The panelists will explore the intersection of pop culture and spiritual concerns in late Edo society with leading scholars. Attendees will discover the reasons behind the acclaim for Kano Kazunobu’s phantasmagoric paintings of Buddha’s legendary disciples and Katsushika Hokusai’s famous print series of Mount Fuji, and learn how the popularity of these iconic images endures in contemporary Japan.

In addition to Vaporis, the panel includes:

• James C. Dobbins, Fairchild Professor of Religion at Oberlin College
• Patricia Graham, independent art historian
• Freer|Sackler curators James Ulak and Ann Yonemura

The event will take place on May 5 at 2 p.m. in the gallery’s Meyer auditorium.

As election season moves into high gear, UMBC faculty are providing media with insight into both local and national political developments.

Laura Hussey, assistant professor of political science, commented for AP on Maryland state Sen. Anthony Muse’s campaign to oust U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin. Muse has promoted himself as a better advocate on issues such as consumer protection, but Hussey notes that Cardin maintains an incumbent’s advantage, benefiting from name recognition, prominent endorsements and strong financial support.

Hussey argues that if the seat were open, rather than occupied by an incumbent, demographic and geographic differences between Muse and Cardin would play a greater role in the election. Muse has suggested that Maryland is poised to elect an African-American to the U.S. senate at a moment when there are no black U.S. senators.

Don Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, predicted for the National Journal that “there won’t be any surprises” in the Maryland and D.C. Republican primaries—Romney is likely to easily take the lead in both.

“The Republican electorate in Maryland is a little more moderate”—and Romney-friendly—“than in other states below the Mason-Dixon line,” says Norris. Although the primary might be less exciting in Maryland than other states, the delegates are just as important. “Romney’s waging a war of attrition against Santorum and Gingrich,” Norris argues. “Every time he wins a delegate…[it] goes into the plus column to eventually get to the 1,144 that he’s got to have.”

The Washington Post this weekend featured a reflection on the turbulent development of Nationals Park, home to the Washington Nationals. The article concluded with a comment by UMBC economics professor Dennis Coates, who wrote a report opposing the stadium deal in 2004.

Coates argued that sports facilities redistribute (rather than increase) leisure spending and asked: “Does it make sense to spend all those tax dollars on a stadium that will just attract the entertainment dollar from Georgetown or Adams Morgan to the ballpark area?” However, he also suggested the investment might pay off if the District’s goal was to attract suburbanites’ leisure spending.

Recent findings indicate that this might indeed be what is happening: 60% of game attendees are from Virginia, 25% from Maryland and 15% from the District, which means Virginians are disproportionately contributing their leisure funds to D.C.’s coffers.

UMBC and Marie desJardins appeared in the New York Times. The article, “Computer Science for the Rest of Us,” describes the idea that all students should learn how to ‘think computationally’ and discusses the growing number of new efforts to teach non-majors how to do that, with or without learning how to program in conventional programming languages like Python or Java.

Marie desJardins, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says her department uses Scratch in its “Introduction to Computers and Programming” course, in which students can try a few basic concepts. About 25 percent of the semester is spent on programming.

Explaining why Scratch is used at the college level, she says that all students arrive on campus having taken high school classes in English, math, biology and so on, but that many have not taken a computer science class.”

Bill Shewbridge, director of UMBC’s New Media Studio, spoke to Urbanite about the role technology plays on campus and in the lives of students.

“There is a tendency to think that students are digital natives,” says Bill Shewbridge, the director of the new media studio at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). “But uploading a picture to Facebook doesn’t make you a producer, much less an informed consumer.”

A television producer-turned-professor, Shewbridge discovered this after embarking on UMBC’s digital storytelling project eight years ago. To tell digital stories—short videos, usually for a particular class, that combine scriptwriting, interviewing, and research—students first needed to be taught video editing, audio recording, and image processing. Now, UMBC offers a multimedia literacy lab, a one-credit course taken concurrently with another class, where students learn those skills.

The article, “The Wired Campus,” appeared March 30 in Urbanite.

Infinite Possibilities for Minority Women in Mathematics

Leaders across the country have called for the country to produce more scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Yet, despite the fact that minorities comprise the fastest-growing groups in the country, they are the least represented in science and engineering careers.

In mathematics, the disparity is particularly acute for underrepresented minority women. They account for less than 2 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded in mathematics each year, as well as less than 1 percent of incoming freshman majoring in the field.

“Changing those numbers goes beyond ‘the right thing to do,’” says Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC. “Minority women account for a growing proportion of college-ready students. Increasing their representation in mathematics is critical if the United States is to remain competitive on a global scale.”

To that end, on March 30 and 31, UMBC will host the fourth Infinite Possibilities Conference (IPC) for minority women in mathematics and statistics. The conference is designed to promote, educate, encourage and support minority women interested in the mathematical sciences.

“It can be very isolating, and easy to feel that you don’t belong in mathematics,” says Tanya Moore, one of the conference founders. “We wanted to give people an opportunity to see women all over the country just like them.”

Sue Minkoff, the local organizing chair for the conference and an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at UMBC, says the event is designed to connect aspiring and early-career mathematicians with mentors and role models, who can address concerns the women may have about differences between themselves and traditional mathematicians.

“IPC provides students at the high school, undergraduate and graduate levels with opportunities to interact with peers and more established female mathematicians in a supportive and collegial atmosphere,” she says.

Hosting the conference also supports UMBC’s overall mission. “We hope that hosting the conference here at UMBC will help us in our continued efforts to recruit minority women in mathematics and statistics at the faculty, graduate and undergraduate levels,” says Nagaraj Neerchal, professor and chair of UMBC’s department of mathematics and statistics.

Erika Camacho, an assistant professor of mathematics at Arizona State University and a slated speaker, says the conference provides a strong sense of community and belonging that is currently missing for women of color in STEM fields at most places. It allows women to become catalysts of change by supporting each other.

The agenda for the 2012 conference includes keynote speakers, research talks, poster sessions and panel discussions, ranging from advice for graduate studies to navigating paths beyond the degree.

The day before the conference, there will be a short course in mathematical biology, funded by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute collaborative diversity program and organized by the Institute for Math and Its Applications at the University of Minnesota. There will also be a special program for high school students and teachers on Saturday.

(3/29/12)

UMBC sophomores Edward Burroughs III and David H. Murray are making waves in their run for seats on the 8-member Prince George’s County Board of Education.

Burroughs is currently serving his first term on the county board and is also a former student representative for the group. Murray, a Sondheim Scholar, previously served as a student representative on Maryland’s State Board of Education. To learn more about their campaigns, see this week’s TV news segment from WUSA9 and Washington Post story on the Maryland Schools Insider blog.

Patch reports that nearly 60,000 people turned out for early voting in Maryland, March 24-29, but that accounts for just 1.88% of eligible voters statewide. UMBC public policy professor and chair Donald Norris, quoted in the story, suggests these early votes will have little impact on the overall election turnout.

“Virtually nothing improves voting turnout except when people are really, really excited about what’s going on in a campaign,” Norris said. The GOP presidential primary candidates are now trying to energize Republican voters across the state through local speaking appearances.